UAPA Wrecking Lives: What Is The Human Cost?

10/07/2021

Live Law / by Manu Sebastian

It is high time that the human costs extracted by the unjust detentions under UAPA are calculated and accountability is fixed on those investigating officers who trapped innocents by misusing the statute.
This article is not about how the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act(UAPA) is leading to blatant violations of civil liberties and how the act is being used to criminalize dissent. Much has been written and commented about this aspect by several constitutional scholars.
Experienced criminal law practitioners have highlighted that the stringent bail provisions of UAPA result in innocent persons languishing as undertrials on flimsy and fanciful chargers, only to be acquitted several years later. There is no need to add to the overwhelmingly compelling critical commentarries about UAPA.
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Trying Without a Trial Is the Intent of Draconian UAPA Law

09/07/2021

The Wire / by Rajshree Chandra

‘Trial by process’ is the political and organisational logic of the UAPA.
An 84-year-old Jesuit Father, Stan Swamy, charged for inciting violence in Bhima Koregaon (BK), died inside the panoptic walls of the Taloja jail on July 5. Despite his age, despite his Parkinson’s-ravaged body, despite his tremors, despite his Covid infection, despite all his frailties, he had been denied bail repeatedly. Rather than his ailing, failing body becoming a ground for bail and appropriate medical care, his body became yet another ground on which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) waged its vicious war.
Now with one gone, there are 15 other bodies, 15 other grounds, 15 other citizens on whose imprisoned bodies this diabolical war shall continue, in which law will be upheld procedurally, but justice denied.
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